Scores of eighth-grade students on Friday morning walked out of their classes at Pierce Middle School in Milton to demand an antiracist learning environment, a little over a week after administrators publicly denounced a video that captured one student’s use of a racial slur.
Between 125 and 150 eighth-graders filed out of class at around 8:52 a.m. and gathered outside the Central Avenue building, James F. Jette, superintendent of Milton Public Schools, said in a telephone interview. A few students gave speeches decrying bias of any type and emphasizing their desire to learn in an “environment of acceptance.” The group circled the building, chanting, “We want change!” before returning to classes at around 9:30 a.m.
“This is a teachable moment in democracy and self-advocacy,” said Jette, who watched the protest from a distance. “My hope is this is another step, not the first step, another step in moving in the right direction where we as a community, state, nation as a whole come together and be more inclusive and accepting and celebrate our diversity.”
He said students protested “very appropriately” and that administrators’ only concern was safety, as the middle school abuts a state highway.
“We wanted to make sure no one was in potential harm or danger,” said Jette. “The kids were more than appropriate.”
The walkout was driven by a video of a Pierce Middle School student using a racial slur that was posted to social media by another student and denounced last week by administrators as “deplorable,” Jette said. School officials launched an investigation after they learned of the video, and Pierce principal William Fish told families in an e-mail last week that a meeting was held with all eighth-grade students to address the incident.
Jette said Friday’s walkout was “organized by students who were aware of the events over the course of the last couple of weeks. ... They were eighth-graders, they’re the oldest ones in the school, the leader[s] of the school. They made a stand for change and acceptance.”
Further adding to the recent tumult at the school, Pierce briefly went into lockdown Wednesday morning after a student saw a staff member pull out a phone charger and mistook the device for a weapon.
Friday’s protest is the latest in a string of walkouts against racism at public schools on the South Shore in recent months. In November, students at Quincy High School walked out of school en masse after a 25-second cellphone video circulated in which a white high school student used a racial epithet while expressing hatred of Black people.
Later that month, students at Braintree High School staged a peaceful protest in support of racial justice.
Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.